To Whom Shall I go?

Okay, to piggy back on my post Christianity Serves Us, Andy Stanley made another good point. When Christianity no longer serves us well, when we enter those seasons where Christianity costs more than it serves, we tend to turn away. 

I have noticed that a lot of testimonies include that: I was a Christian, I lost faith, but now I am back. I have that in my journey.

I was saved at seven years old, but during the years that I suffered abuse at the hands of my father I considered myself an atheist. I believed that if there was a loving God, then he wouldn’t allow something like this to happen to me. So, the only logical conclusion was that there was no God. But, you know, I had to convince myself of that for a long time. When I stopped trying to convince myself of that, I naturally fell back into a spiritual belief. And by the time I was 16, I was baptized and had "come back" to Christianity.

But, just as Peter said to Jesus. "To whom shall we go?" When we turn away from Jesus, to whom shall we go? When we walk away from Jesus, we walk toward something or someone else. Now, some people will insert things in here like: "I am more spiritual than a member of an organized religion." "I turn to Buddha." "I became Wicca." Etc.

The Bible is very clear, though. God says that if we turn away from Jesus, then we turn away from him too. If we don’t follow God, then we must follow Satan.

"Lord, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of everlasting life"

I have my two cents here . . . If you are an atheist and believe there is no God, then something of the world takes that place of worship. It could be your love of the planet, your children, your addiction to drugs, your addiction to adrenaline (the adrenaline you get from stealing or lying or seeing how much you can get away with). So, my natural conclusion is that if you turn from Jesus, then you turn to Satan. Even if it is just a little, it’s enough to condemn you if you don’t turn back.

Yesterday, I spoke of the strong moral compass that the Holy Spirit instilled in me. When I think of the trials in my life over the last few years, and the influences that I have around me, if I did not have that internal moral compass (a.k.a. the Holy Spirit) that I do, then I may have made some decisions that would have really messed up my life. I would have turned from Jesus and his teachings and got sucked into any number of situations that Satan has waiting for me. Honestly, the worst of which (and the easiest to have fallen into) would be that I could be going through a divorce. I could have devastated myself, my daughter, my stepdaughter, my husband and started any number of negative chains of events in their lives, my life, and the lives around us. But I did not and am not. You know why? Because . . .

"To whom shall (I) go?" John 6:68